Tears of Laughter, Joy and Pain
by AlwaysPadfoot
Summary: "She said we were inseparable as babies; we were like brothers apparently." "I never knew that." The more I thought about it, the more I craved knowing my parents even more. Suddenly a high pitched ringing made me clasp my hands over my ears, my head screamed with pain before my eyes rolled backwards and I knew nothing more. Rated T.
1. Chapter 1

**- Tears of Laughter, Joy and Pain –**

**- AlwaysPadfoot –**

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**Disclaimer: **Yeah, well as much as I would love it to be mine, I'm just playing in JK's sandbox :)

**Competition: **Marie's Multi-Chapter Competition

**AN: **I hope you all enjoy this; I'm really looking forward to writing it. :)

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**PROLOGUE**

**- I'd Do Anything -**

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_**MASS BREAKOUT FROM AZKABAN - MINISTRY FEARS BLACK IS 'RALLYING POINT' FOR OLD DEATH EATERS**_

_The Ministry of Magic announced late last night that there has been a mass breakout from Azkaban._

_Speaking to reporters in his private office, Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic, confirmed that ten high-security prisoners escaped in the early hours of yesterday evening and that he has already informed the Muggle Prime Minister of the dangerous nature of these individuals._

_'We find ourselves, most unfortunately, in the same position we were two and a half years ago when the murderer Sirius Black escaped,' said Fudge last night. 'Nor do we think the two breakouts are unrelated. An escape of this magnitude suggests outside help, and we must remember that Black, as the first person ever to break out of Azkaban, would be ideally placed to help others follow in his footsteps. We think it likely that these individuals, who include Black's cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange, have rallied around Black as their leader. We are, however, doing all we can to round up the criminals, and we beg the magical community to remain alert and cautious. On no account should any of these individuals be approached.'_

The breakout from Azkaban Prison had everyone practising more, working harder and studying just that little bit extra. Therefore I pinned it up amongst the pictures of the Order and of Cedric for inspiration; to spur everyone on.

The person that had improved the most was Neville Longbottom. Although, I did feel that he could improve further, but I honestly couldn't figure out quite what wasn't working for him. His incantations and wand movement were perfect but the spells he cast were either A, not strong enough, or B, not entirely accurate.

At the end of one of the DA's most productive sessions I found myself swelling with pride as I spoke to them.

"Congratulations guys, you're all doing so well; I'm really proud of your effort and hard work," I smiled. After I let them know that they should keep an eye on their coins, they all started to leave in twos or threes. Ron and Hermione hung back for me so that we could leave together, but I spotted Neville standing by the pictures and newspaper clippings on the wall. I sent a pleading look at my friends that let them know to go on ahead before I approached Neville.

"Neville?"

"I hate not knowing them Harry," he finally whispered to me, I rested a hand on his shoulder and his eyes fell to the mad picture of Bellatrix Lestrange. "All because of her."

"Sometimes horrible things happen to good people Neville, and I know they'd be proud of you."

We stood in silence for a long while, just watching the photo of the Order. My mum and Neville's were stood side by side, their husbands close by as they posed for the photo that was being taken. They looked happy and it made me angry that the both of us had lost our parents to Voldemort; neither of us got to see or rather remember our parents that happy.

I wish I could have known them.

"Harry, when you remember them, do you ever wish that maybe you didn't get rid of Voldemort just so you can have them back?"

For a moment, I was taken aback and I guessed as 'The-Boy-Who-Lived' I should be saying that I would trade nothing for Voldemort to have never been vanquished, not even my parents. We stayed silent before Neville met my eyes looking for an answer; I kept my expression calm.

"I would do pretty much anything to have my Mum and Dad back," I eventually said, "Even if it meant that I lost all I had here."

I'd love to say that wasn't true, but for someone who had never known their parents, grown up with a family who hated them, always felt like the most insignificant person in the world, being part of a real, very normal family would make me a very happy person. A minor part of me, the part with the hero-complex was rather upset with my proclamation but deep down I felt a connection with Neville; deep down I knew he understood exactly what I meant.

"Really?" Neville's voice cracked slightly, "You really would leave everything you have here?"

"Yes, Neville, yes I would," I answered; I could swear I saw a tear slip down his cheek and a brief look of relief cross his face for just a moment.

"I would too," he replied, "Any magic that I have, I know it's not a lot but I'd give it all up for them."

"Don't say that Neville, you've improved so much; you've got just as much magic as me."

Neville just smiled weakly at me; I could sense he was purely relieved because I would give up my fame for my parents and that it wasn't so bad to have a selfish dream every so often.

There was part of him that didn't believe me either.

"You don't believe me, do you?" I asked as one eyebrow rose slightly; Neville didn't say anything, "What's your Patronus, Neville?"

"Erm…" he made a noise and then muttered a barely recognisable answer.

"What is it?" I repeated firmly giving him no option but to tell me just by changing the tone of my voice.

"It's a Lion." Neville said, looking bashfully towards his feet for a second.

"You know what? I don't even need to tell you how right your Patronus is for you Neville. You're brave, you stand up for what's right – remember first year with Malfoy? You won us the house cup with your courage and you were only eleven!"

"But –" he tried to interrupt.

"You can produce one bloody decent Patronus Neville; most fully grown wizards and witches can't do that. I cannot imagine a better Gryffindor than you – your Mum and Dad would be so proud having you as their son because you are the best representative of Gryffindor House." I felt really proud of the speech I was giving at the moment; I just hope to god Neville felt better because of it.

"But Harry."

"Don't even say that I'm a true Gryffindor; the damn hat wanted to put me in Slytherin," I cut in. Neville and I stared at each other for a moment, and finally Neville caved.

"Thank you Harry," he smiled, "You know, I think being a Slytherin wouldn't have changed you at all."

I must admit I was surprised, if there was one person who had been mistreated the most by the Slytherins it was Neville and out of most of us he should have proved to dislike them the most.

"Really?" I asked curiously.

"They're really not that bad; you know Tracy Davies and Matthew Farley?"

I nodded even though for a while I had thought Matthew Farley was a Ravenclaw. I think that proves I really don't pay attention to anything but Voldemort.

"They're both really helpful; Tracy helps me with Transfiguration and Matthew helps me with Potions," Neville explained.

"They tutor you?!" I asked, half sceptical, half shocked. Neville nodded.

"I've actually known Matt since I was five and I help Tracy with Herbology in return," he added.

I can't say I wasn't surprised by Neville's revelation; never in a million years would I believed anyone else if they'd told me that, but I suppose I did wonder who he hung around with.

"You know Neville, you surprise me a lot and I think I really would like to know the real you," I said.

"Gran always said if there had been no war then we would have grown up together because our mums were best friends," he said, "She said we were inseparable as babies; we were like brothers apparently."

"I never knew that," I said quietly, trying to picture Neville and I's parents together with us sitting playing on the carpet. It made me smile softly but ache slightly inside; the more I thought about it, the more I craved knowing my parents even more.

All of a sudden the room shook violently and I tumbled to the floor as Neville fell into the wall trying to keep himself upright. My ears were assaulted by the obnoxious sound of stone grinding all around us and what sounded like a high pitched squealing mixed in too.

"HARRY, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!" Neville shouted over the noise that was almost drowning him out. The room was shaking even harder now; the practice dummies were toppling over and I barely rolled out of the way of one of the heavier, metal looking ones. We needed to get out of here.

"GET TO THE DOOR!" I shouted as Neville had several books rained on him from the shelves he was trying to cling too.

"WHAT DOOR?! THERE IS NO BLOODY DOOR!"

My head snapped to where the door was supposed to be, and to my despair Neville was right; the door was gone. Before I knew he grabbed my arm, pulling me out the way of a falling bookshelf and we both slid under the nearest table as the room continued to shake viciously.

"What the hell is going on Harry?" Neville cried, peering out from under the table where things were slowly looking worse and worse.

"I have no idea; it's never done this before!"

"It's going to stop, right?" Neville turned to me unsure.

"I hope so Neville; I mean there's no reason for the Room to be doing this," I answered. I couldn't understand; it was a bit like an earthquake but there is no way that this was mad-made. This was magic. Since we could barely hear each other we remained quiet as the horrific scene in front of us got more disastrous by the second. I tried looking for any escape route, but all of the doors were gone now and outside the windows the sky had gone pitch back; the only light was coming from the torches on the walls, which were coincidently were still all firmly in place. There was definitely something weird going on; the room was doing this to Neville and me.

Suddenly a high pitched ringing made me clasp my hands over my ears and yell out loud. What the _hell_ was that?! My head screamed with pain, ripping across my forehead and straight to my temples. I barely managed to glimpse at Neville, who was in the same pain before my eyes rolled backwards and I knew nothing more.

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**_Please R&R :) _**

**_Ami x_**


	2. Chapter 2

**- Tears of Laughter, Joy and Pain –**

**- AlwaysPadfoot –**

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**Disclaimer: **Alas, it does not do to dwell on dreams. Not mine; it's JK's, ALWAYS!  
**Competition: **Marie's Multi-Chapter Competition  
**AN: **I can't believe how many people alerted this :O THANK YOU! :)

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**CHAPTER 1**

**Notes and Nonsense**

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My eyes snapped open and instantaneously my hands searched frantically for my wand. It was only when I realised that I wasn't going to find it that the panic started to set in and I bolted upright, smashing my head on the underside of the table we had hidden under. Wincing visibly, I turned to Neville who was also just stirring and almost jumped again. There was a trail of dried blood coming from his nose and more that had dribbled down his neck, which I suspected had come from his ears.

"Bloody hell, Neville. Are you okay?"

He turned to me and blinked unbelievingly, staring at me.

"Never mind me Harry, what about you? Your s-scar," he stammered, pointed to my forehead. I frowned, bringing the back of my hand to my scar and when I brought it away again my hand was wet with blood. Shocked, I stayed silent staring at the blood on my hand for a short while. It's never done that before, but weirdly it didn't hurt or sting or anything; that never happened either. Neville had crawled out from under the table, looking around in disbelief and I realise why soon after. The room looked completely in order; it didn't look at all like what had happened had happened at all and on top of that it only felt like just minutes ago when it taken place

"I can't find my wand," Neville moaned and that finally snapped me out of my thoughts.

"Me neither," I answered, sliding out from under the table and shakily stood up.

"The room can't take our wands, can it?"

"Well, I guess it can, since it has," I responded dully. I felt lost without my wand and I couldn't understand why the room had bloody taken it.

"That was my Dad's wand," he said, his eyes still searching the room for any sign of his wand.

"We can find Hermione, she'll know what's going on," I promised, but when I turned to where the door should be to discover that it hadn't reappeared after disappearing the last time.

"You have got to be kidding me," Neville and I chorused.

"What are we supposed to do now?"

The true was, I had no idea what we were going to do. There was no way out of the room and I desperately tried to think about the door. We need the door, we need the door, WE NEED THE DOOR. Nothing happened; not one thing happened. The Room had us well and truly trapped, but of course, Hermione and Ron would figure out that we hadn't reappeared and come find us. It wouldn't be long, all we had to do was wait and hope that they figured it out before Umbridge noticed.

"The Room has chosen you," Neville enquired, "What the hell does that mean?!"

I whipped around to see Neville staring at the mirror above the fireplace. On the mirror in bold, black letters was a note:

_**The Room has chosen you.**_

"Chosen us?" I read slowly, "Chosen us for what? What have we been chosen for?!" I shouted as the words faded from the mirror. For a second nothing happened but then the same words reappeared again.

_**The Room has chosen you.**_

"Tell us something we don't know," Neville muttered. Before I got even more pissed off the mirror came away from the wall at one side revealing a dark tunnel. Both Neville's and I's eyes widened for a second before we turned to look each other.

"Now I wasn't expecting that," I said finally. I took one last fleeting look to where the door should be and when I had clarified it definitely wasn't there I headed over to the fireplace. Lifting myself up onto the mantle piece and into the entrance of the mirror. Neville, who was eyeing me cautiously, approached me looking slightly wary.

"I don't know about this Harry," he said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. I rolled my eyes with a grin and held a hand out to beckon Neville to follow me.

"C'mon Neville, I'd rather get out of here because if I stay I might just go a little stir crazy," I replied. After a few seconds, he lifted himself up beside me and we started down the tunnel. It got darker and darker until I could no longer see my hand if I waved it in front of my face.

"Can't see a bloody thing," I murmured, "If only I can cast a Lumos."

"Lumos," Neville repeated. Suddenly a burst of light came from just in front of me, illuminating Neville. I stared in disbelief as a bright, white ball of light materialised in in his left hand and lit up the whole tunnel.

"Was that wandless?" I queried. Neville blushed and looked away continued forward.

"Sometimes I can't control my magic with my wand, sometimes it's easier to just to let go and do it without," he answered.

"You just did wandless magic, that's amazing Neville. Loads of witches and wizards can't do that," I exclaimed, "You are an amazing wizard."

Neville blushed again and kept moving forward. I never knew all these things about Neville. He can do wandless magic, he hangs out with Slytherins; who knew? I couldn't understand why I didn't know all this stuff about Neville. I mean we shared the same dorm. Without another word we followed the tunnel forward until we reached a wooden step ladder, which led to a trapdoor in the roof of the tunnel. I went first, quickly making my way up the ladder until at last I eased the trapdoor upwards.

It was dark in the room above the tunnel, but when I was sure that nobody was there I heaved myself up into the room. Neville had to extinguish his light to climb the ladder so when we closed the trap door behind us it was so dark that I had to hold my hands out in front of me. After all, I'm twice as blind in the dark as I am in the daylight.

Eventually, after much shuffling about and walking into things, my hands fell upon a heavy brass handle. Slowly I pushed open the door to find that Neville and I were in The Three Broomsticks pub. It was abandoned so I could only guess that it was somewhere between closing time and daybreak. I couldn't understand how time had passed so quickly; it had been just before lunch when I had dismissed the DA so where the hell had twelve hours gone?

"We should get back up to Hogwarts Harry," Neville started.

Ignoring him for just a second, I noticed that it was unusually warm in the pub and neither the torches nor the fireplaces were lit. That was odd, very odd indeed. In the corner I spotted an events and noticeboard, which I'd never seen before so out of curiosity I went over the take a look.

_**Kneazle Litter For Sale**_

_**Contact Robert Jones**_

I was sure that Hermione's cat was part Kneazle, although, I wasn't really sure what a Kneazle was if I was completely honest. My eyes fell to the next advertisement:

_**Local Business Quidditch Match**_

_**The Three Broomsticks v The Post Office Staff**_

_**13:00 Tomorrow - Monday 2nd August**_

Monday 2nd August? I rubbed my temples momentarily before checking the note attatched to the board once more. The date remained the same. I frowned; it was Saturday 18th January not August. It had to be an old notice surely.

"Erm, Harry, you might want to come and have a look at this," Neville's small voice seemed loud in the quiet and I turned to see him staring at a discarded Daily Prophet.

_**MINISTER BAGNOLD DECLARES EXTRA VIGILANCE**_

"Mmm, who's Bagnold?" I responded, figuring that I remembered the name vaguely and had probably seen or heard it in History of Magic or something.

"Minister for Magic until he was killed in 1976 in a Deatheater Attack," Neville replied, "Harry, look at the date."

_**Sunday 1st August 1975**_

My mouth dropped open. 1975? There was no way we were in 1975; I'd heard Hermione talk about time travel loads of times after she'd had the time-turner. She said it wasn't possible; it was too dangerous to fiddle with a timeline you were already in and more often than not wizards and witches who did you either ended up causing more pain for themselves and those around them or they ended up killing themselves.

It was all rather depressing.

"No way. This is crazy," I blurted out, "This cannot be the real date; this is crazy. It's complete and utter nonsense."

"Do you have any other suggestions about what's happened? Because right now this Prophet is looking more authentic than it ever has," Neville cut into my blabbering.

The thing was, I couldn't come up with anything else, unless, of course, this was a dream. This definitely didn't feel like a dream. I looked back to the paper once more.

My parents were alive, if we really were in 1975 then my parents were alive and well. In fact they were about to go into their fifth year at Hogwarts if I remember rightly from the Quidditch Trophy's in the Trophy Room. I could meet my parents and Neville, he could meet his parents too. The Room had given us a chance to meet out parents. I rushed over the the fireplace, searching round for Floo Powder.

"What are you doing, Harry?"

"Our parents are alive Neville, I'm not hanging around to see if this is or isn't real," I said excitedly, my eyes alight as I grabbed a handful of Floo Powder. I was just about to climb into the fireplace when Neville grabbed my shoulder.

"Are you crazy?!" He cried, "Do you think your Grandparents are just going to let you into their house and then invite you to sit at the dinner table and play happy families?"

I blinked, my body froze in place as I contemplated the brown-haired boys words.

"What are you going to say exactly?" Neville pressed, "Oh, Good Evening, I'm your son's son so I guess that makes you Grandma and Grandpa?"

I sighed, taking a step back. Neville was right, no matter how much I didn't want him to be, what he was saying wasn't nonsense. It made complete and utter sense, despite making me sound like I was completely nuts. I really had no idea that Neville had gained some wisdom over the last few months.

"You're right," I sighed.

Before either of us could say anything more, a gruff voice spoke behind us.

"You two, what's your business here," it said. Neville and I whirled around to find a foreboding man stood with his wand pointed directly at us. Behind him was a young woman eyeing us cautiously and she looked a lot like Madam Rosmerta from back in our time. Anxiously I looked down, luckily we were in our own clothes since it had been a weekend when we'd left. It might have been awkward to explain why we were in Hogwarts robes midway through Summer.

"Well, who are you?"

Cautiously I stepped forward, holding up my hands in defence, "Erm, my name's Harry P–" I began before Neville cut in.

"Stoke. He's my brother Harry Stoke, and I'm Neville Stoke, we're sorry for intruding on your property, Sir. We were wondering whether you could offer us a room for tonight," he explained.

"You broke into my pub and now you want a room?" He growled.

"Dad, they're only kids, just give them the spare room."

It was the Young Rosmerta who spoke from behind her father. He eyed us cautiously before grudgingly allowing us his spare room. I was glad that neither of the two commented on the state of Neville and I as I thanked the man for giving us a room for the night. When I was sure that they'd both returned to bed for the night and once we'd washed away the blood and grime from our _adventure_, I turned to Neville.

"Good save down there," I grinned lopsidedly. I wasn't completely sure why we couldn't use our real names, but fake names seemed like a good idea.

"We can hardly go running around with two of the most prominent and well-know names in Wizarding Britain, could we?" Neville answered, trying to scrub the blood off the shirt he had been wearing. That made sense, of course we couldn't use our real names, that would be stupid.

Not that this was all as crazy.

"No, I guess not. Right, we need an action plan since we're stuck here," I replied, "We need money, a place to stay and since we could be here for a long time, we need a place at Hogwarts. Maybe we should go to Dum -" I began.

"I vote we don't tell anyone," Neville interrupted. I stared at Neville, who was half grinning, half looking straight at me with a dead seriousness.

"Anyone?" I echoed.

"Think about it, Harry, if we tell someone about you, particularly about all the Boy-Who-Lived stuff. You'll never get to be a kid Harry, you won't get time to spend with your parents because everyone will want you to fight You-K - Voldemort, everyone will want you to fight Voldemort."

Neville said Voldemort. I can't believe what is happening, it's so unreal, it's nonsense really. A chance at life without Voldemort, well, school without Voldemort. Now that would be something. Okay, so my parents wouldn't be my parents; they'd be James Potter and Lily Evans instead, but I can deal with that as long as they're still alive.

"Right, we don't tell a soul," I agreed finally.

"Now about money and somewhere to live, have you ever heard of your family's emergency vault?"

I frowned, I was pretty sure I'd never heard of that so I shook my head as Neville gave up scrubbing his shirt and abandoned it in the sink.

"Most Old Noble Families have an Emergency Vault, but it's only accessible by the family's Goblin and the family never get to find out whether it has been accessed or how much money is in," Neville explained.

"What's the point of it then I no one can access it but the goblins," I asked.

"We'll that's not completely true, it's accessible via the family's Goblin to Blood Family members who for reasons other than disownment do not have access the the main family vaults," Neville replied.

"That includes us then?" I clarified.

"Yeah, I think so, I'm sure all we have to do is turn up at Gringrotts; they'll probably have to do a blood test though," he said.

"That'll get us money then."

"Most likely a place to live too, the Longbottom emergency vault has a property deed in there and I bet the Potters has one too."

Piece by piece we slowly put together new lives for ourselves. We stuck with the last name Stoke and with the story that we were brothers because Neville figured we shouldn't deviate from what we had already told people. We decided on various other things too, for example, we were going to try and make me look a little more like Neville since every one said I look a lot my Dad. We couldn't have another James walking around. We were going to get a pair of contact lenses for myself and try and find a way to cover up my scar. Despite the fact I wasn't Harry Potter with the famous scar any longer, it would be weird for Harry Stoke to have to answer questions about the weird scar on his forehead.

"What about Hogwarts?" Neville said.

"We should write to McGonagall," I replied finally, "Dumbledore might suspect us and perhaps you should learn Occlumency, Snape's being trying to–"

Neville gave a slight laugh, "My Nan taught me Occlumency already."

I blinked at him unbelievingly. Neville seemed to surprise me more and more the longer we spent together in this time.

"Your Nan taught you?"

"Yeah, I bet your parents would have taught you," he replied, "It's a Pureblood thing."

"I need your help to learn then because Snape hardly helped me," I mumbled.

"I always knew Snape was well practised in legilimency," Neville grimaced. I yawned widely and tried to put everything in perspective in my head because right now everything was confusing me and Neville seemed to be making the most out of this nonsense better than I was.

"I think we should go to sleep and then tomorrow we'll go to Gringrotts," Neville said, "I'll take the sofa."

"Thanks Neville."

I grinned and went over to the bed as Neville grabbed a spare blanket and practically fell onto the sofa in exhaustion. It was only now that I realised how tired I was after all that had happened today.

"Night Harry," Neville said, blowing out the candle on the dresser before the room was plunged into mid-darkness as it was already starting to become light outside.

"Night Nev," I replied settling down under the thin sheet of the bed cover. There was a blanket at the end of the bed but it was too warm for it so I rolled over and placed my glasses on the bedside. They'd broken in the Room of the Requirement but I didn't really care; this was amazing no matter how crazy. We were both so tired that neither of us noticed a flash of light as a note appeared on the mirror.

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_**Mr Potter and Mr Longbottom**_

_**You have both been granted access to your family's emergency vault**_

_**Please attend a meeting at Gringrotts tomorrow at 11.**_

_**You will have to partake in a blood test.**_

_**Jawjack**_

_**Head Goblin**_


End file.
